


To the End of the Earth, I'll Follow You

by ReaperShadCat



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Slavery, Human Dominated Society, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2011-08-27
Updated: 2011-12-05
Packaged: 2017-10-23 03:12:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 10,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/245664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ReaperShadCat/pseuds/ReaperShadCat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Trolls are servants. They are things, things which do not talk unless spoken to and do not question what is asked of them. They are monsters. They are not human, and they will never be.</p><p>This is what Dave Strider, Prince of Derse, has always been told.</p><p>This is what John Egbert, Heir of Prospit, does not believe.</p><p>Neither of them are discreet with their opinions. Both of them will pay for it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. He Always Had A Name

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first multi-chapter fic! I hope you all like it. I have to ask that you keep an eye on the story's tags, though, because while I have a plot in mind, I might end up changing things and thus changing the tags/warnings around. No need to worry about that right now, though. Enjoy!

“Wake up, slacker.” A wadded ball of paper left his hand and struck his sleeping servant smack in the forehead, evoking a crude huffing sound from the target. “We’ve got shit to do today. Meetin’ with someone. Don’t mess it up.”

The prince pulled on his casual clothes, his signature white-and-red shirt emblazoned with his personal broken record symbol. He wore it every day, despite the fact that he was expected to wear more formal clothes as royalty – he simply did not give a shit about that. Today, especially, was one of those days he wanted nothing to do with fancy clothes. Today he was meeting up with his best friend, a common occurrence for Thursdays, and there was no way he was going to act like some royal prick while the other boy was around. He had a gut feeling that he’d seem like it anyways, though. It didn’t matter, however, because today was an extra-special one. Nothing would mess it up. Nothing.

Dave Strider, Prince of the Kingdom of Derse, was sure of it.

\---

Dave and his servant waited patiently in the park for the boy to arrive. Well, Dave was patient – his servant was not, his hands becoming heavy from the package he held. It wasn’t big, but the servant didn’t have much muscle tone – no thanks to Dave, who locked him in their royal flatroom all day and mostly ordered him to be quiet so as not to disturb Dave’s music, leaving the servant with little to do than fiddle with small electronics in the corner. He didn’t speak much. Dave wasn’t sure he could – and honestly it didn’t bother him. Servants weren’t supposed to talk back. He did, however, make considerable amounts of animalistic sounds – grunts, growls, hisses, chirps and huffs, usually of annoyance, graced Dave’s ears almost daily.

And, just as Dave thought about this, his servant was making a loud chirp, his head turned in the direction of two dark shapes approaching. One of them Dave recognized as his best friend, John Egbert – a ball of energy and excitement, skipping as he went. The other one was walking more slowly, its back hunched a bit, shuffling as it went and making some rather grouchy noises. Dave hadn’t noticed its small horns at first, but upon closer inspection, it was, indeed, a troll.

“Dude, Egbert. Why’d you bring your troll? It looks pissed.”

“Ahem. _He,_ ” the dark-haired human began, taking a seat at a nearby picnic table, “doesn’t like to go places, so he’s kind of mad at me for bringing him, but it’s my birthday, and I told him I wanted him to meet you!” He giggled, waving to the grey-skinned creature to take a seat next to him. It made an irritated grumbling sound, crinkled its nose and plopped unceremoniously down next to its master.

“So you wanted me to see your troll for your birthday. Can’t say that’s the most exciting of your birthday wishes, bro.” Dave eyed the angry troll with a look of displeasure before motioning to his own to hand over the package it had been carrying. It dropped it in front of John with a sigh and went to sit across from the angrier troll. The two of them began to chitter away in a language unknown to the two boys, the small-horned one making snarling sounds the entire time. Dave made a mental note to make sure his own troll didn’t pick up any sourpuss syndrome from it.

John’s face lit up as the package appeared before him. “Daveee, you didn’t have to!” He squeaked, practically jumping from his seat in anticipation.

“’Course I did. What kind of an asshole doesn’t give his best bro a little somethin’ for putting up with him all year? It sure as hell isn’t the Strider kind.” Dave leaned his head on his hands as he watched his bucktoothed friend tear the wrapping to shreds.

“Dave, you aren’t an asshole! Right, Karkat?” John said.

“Sorry, Kerr-what?” Dave said, his face scrunching slightly to express subtle confusion.

“Karkat!” John exclaimed, poking the troll next to him on the shoulder. “You haven’t said hi to Dave yet!”

“Hi, fuckass,” the troll offered to the prince, and then returned to his non-English conversation.

“Wh-what?” Dave stammered, his usual cool slipping away. “What the fuck, Egbert?”

“Huh? What? Did I do something?” John said, working at removing the tape preventing him from his present.

“That thing just cussed me out! And you gave it a name?”

John stopped unwrapping for a moment. “What do you mean, Dave? He always had a name. His name is Karkat Vantas, in fact - and yeah, he has kind of a foul mouth, but he means well!”

Dave just stared. John… John treated this… thing, this troll, this _monster_ as if it were just another teenager sitting with them. Didn’t he see its huge teeth? The huge horns? Those nasty-looking claws?

The prince examined John’s troll again, this time paying more attention to detail. To be honest, the thing really did look a lot more human than Dave’s troll – its nose was soft and round, its jaws smooth, its mouth filled with dull white teeth – those were definitely not like Dave’s troll’s teeth – its round ears, fluffy hair, circular yellow eyes – and… its horns, which were pretty round and really small, as well. The troll was just round in general – not fat, definitely not, but not angular and pointy like Dave’s troll at all. The troll crinkled its nose and squished up its face as it grumbled something particularly sour at the other.

Dave’s troll… wow. Dave didn’t even know its name. Did it have one? Has it always had one? Dave didn’t know.

“Hey, you, slacker.” Dave snapped, and it turned to face him, expressionless as always. Damn, that was freaky. Dave was always pretty expressionless too, but the troll’s default face was pretty freaky. It made a monotonous hum at its master in recognition.

“What are you called?”

It pressed its eyebrows together, as if thinking of how to answer. It turned away, as if avoiding the question – it looked down at its feet, shifting a bit.

“Are you fucking deaf? Answer,” Dave demanded.

It whipped its head back up to meet his gaze, fighting to keep its expression neutral. “Thh…” it hissed. “Thhhhol…”

It scrunched its eyes shut and shook its head, clearly aggravated with something, shooting a disappointed look at John’s troll – sorry, Karkat – as if expecting him to have the answer.

Which, he did.

“His name’s Sollux Captor, asshole. What kind of a dick doesn’t know the name of someone who’s been with them for their whole entire life?”

Dave put his hand down, a little bit too hard. “Hey, watch your fucking mouth, troll. I’m top-class material, cut from the finest threads of badass royal fabric there is. Don’t you dare talk to me like that. And why the fuck didn’t he answer me?”

“D-Dave!” John squeaked.

“He can’t say it, you ass! See those teeth? Yeah, poor bastard can’t say his own name. You’d know that if you EVER talked to him,” the round troll snapped.

“Why would I TALK to it?” Dave raged, tensing up at the negativity in the air. “It’s a fucking TROLL! YOU’RE a fucking troll! Why am I talking to you? God damn, you’re acting like a haughty bitch, you know that? ‘Ooh, my master permits me to speak like a human, this must mean I can be a disrespectful shit in front of all the other humans! I know, let’s badmouth the prince, that’s a great idea!’ Is that what you think, bitch? And how dare you act like Egbert’s your equal, you little shit. Next to him, you’re nothing. You’re a slave, asshole, learn your place.”

“DAVE!” John screeched, jumping up from where he sat. “D-Don’t talk down at him like that! He..” John bit his lip. “He’s… my best friend! Stop being such a jerk! C-can’t we just get along on my birthday?”

Everything was silent. John sat quickly and stared intensely at his hands in his lap. His troll reached a hand to clamp onto John’s arm, its glare focused on a point somewhere far in the distance. Dave’s troll (Sollux, that was his name, right?) was pulled into a tight ball and avoiding eye contact with the rest of them. Dave just sat and stared, blankly, straight at John, his mouth open slightly.

“Your… best friend?” Dave whispered.

“Y-yes, Dave.”

“But.. I thought I was…”

“You…” John hid his face in his arms. “Y-you’re a j-jerk, Dave.” He started to sob.

Karkat shot daggers at Dave with his eyes. “Way to go, douche.” He stood and put a hand on John’s shoulder. “Keep your damn present, John doesn’t want it.”

Dave could only stop and stare as John got up and the two of them slowly walked away, the bespectacled boy sobbing softly into the troll’s black shirt, its arm secured tightly around his shoulders.

After a long while of sitting in complete silence, Dave stood. He began walking back to the tall building containing his flat.

Sollux followed sheepishly behind.


	2. A Reason To Be Upset

Dave felt like he’d been run over by a truck. He sprawled out on his bed, staring up at his ceiling, holding his sunglasses and mindlessly running his calloused fingers all over them.

They’d been a gift from John.

They’d been a gift from his best friend.

Everything was horrible and Dave wanted nothing more than to lie there and die, but he knew he couldn’t. He was supposed to go to his sister’s today, an event he’d normally be somewhat excited for, but today he was miserable. He replayed the previous day’s events in his head as he stared up absentmindedly.

That troll. That fucking troll. What was its name? Karkat? Dave hated him. It stole Dave’s best friend from him. It STOLE John. It talked shit to him. It acted like it was human. It had been the most disgusting thing Dave had ever seen, and he’d seen lots of things. It had been blatant insubordination. Blatant.

And yet John agreed to it. John accepted it, encouraged it even, and Dave’s heart felt like it would explode into a thousand sharp pieces and rip him apart at the very thought. It felt like John had told him he was better friends with a lamp than with Dave.

He turned to stare at the object which had sparked the entire event, curled in a far corner, a single blanket wrapped around it like a cocoon. Its bi-colored eyes were half open, half closed, flashing a gentle blue and red. It breathed with small, hitching whimpers, snoring slightly, but also gasping as if in pain. It was such a thin creature – the black t-shirt it wore did nothing to hide its thin musculature and bony frame, sharp angles jutting every which way, as if it would cut everything around it just by walking past. It had long teeth, four of which stuck out past its lips – two smaller ones in the middle, sharp and serrated, framed by two large canines that stuck out halfway to the troll’s chin. It was sharp in general – four pointed horns, a triangular jaw, and ears that reminded Dave of Spock. Its claws, too, were long and sharp, capable of ripping and tearing, though some of them had been worn down by difficult chores and tasks assigned to their owner.

Dave wondered if the troll – Sollux? Was that it? – had ever thought to use its bodily weapons against him. He shuddered at the idea of being gored on those horns or bitten by those teeth. Trolls were such ugly, vicious-looking monsters. It was a wonder to think that humans would have ever been able to tame them.

Speaking of, Dave thought, he had somewhere to be. He sat slowly, rubbing his eyes and placing his sunglasses back over them. He shook his body violently with a “blluh!” sort of a sound, trying to fend off his fearful fantasies by doing so.

The sound hadn’t been very loud, but Dave’s sleeping troll jumped awake from it, eyes heavy from a lack of sleep. It, too, found its glasses and slowly got up to fetch Dave something to drink, as it did every morning. It gave a small sigh, and returned with some water, which it placed on Dave’s bedstand and then vacated the room to allow him some privacy.

It wrapped its arms around itself and shuddered as it sat patiently in the hallway.

\---

Dave’s sister, Rose, was much more indulgent in her royal lifestyle. Lavish gothic outfits and garish Victorian furniture were her passion, and it made Dave’s head hurt if he paid it too much heed as he stepped inside. Sitting in a cushioned seat to the side, Rose’s troll stitched carefully, its eyes fixated on the fabric in its hands. Dave was suddenly struck with curiosity.

“Hey. Do you call it anything?” He mumbled, gesturing towards the working troll, who was humming softly.

“Her name is Kanaya, yes,” Rose said, looking for a coat to take with her.

“How do you know that?”

“Paperwork,” she answered in a sing-song tune, turning to smile at her brother. “You don’t think they’d just hand everyone a troll without identification, without documentation, did you? They’re all assigned names before they’re assigned children. It’s easier that way.” She pulled her coat on, buttoning it and shifting her shoulders to smooth it out. “Although I suppose some people just ask, seeing as most aren’t likely too interested in organizing paperwork.”

“Yeah.”

“Then again,” she said, looking over to her troll, who was trying to find a new color of string, “I suppose some people never even do that. It makes sense, I suppose, not to get too attached, and giving something a name is the first step towards that.”

She noticed that Dave’s troll had entered the room behind him. “Goodness, Dave! Don’t you feed him?”

“Well, yea, I mean, when it’s hungry. Hasn’t been hungry much lately. Dunno why.”

“He’s skin and bones, Dave. You should take better care of your things, lest you break them.”

Dave flinched at the idea of a dying troll in his room. He’d never seen it bleed, but supposedly his would bleed yellow, and apparently, the pigment responsible stained easily – and having a yellow spot on his floor forever didn’t seem like that great of an idea. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

Rose simply smiled, instructed her troll to make sure no one intruded on her apartment, and led Dave with her to their destination.

\---

Their destination was the breeding facility. Dave hated it – it smelled of troll and slime and blood and was filled with what Dave believed to be the most disturbing things in the world: young trolls, which looked like freakish overgrown insects, and their chrysalises, which were every color of the rainbow and looked like they could hold something the size of a small dog – which they could, as from them would emerge trolls in their adult life stage, all grey and black and orange and sharp. Then, they would be assigned to any human without one. Seeing the things in this building always made Dave gag.

“Amazing to think that such odd looking larvae would pupate into creatures so biologically similar to ourselves,” Rose said, her eyes drinking in the horrific sights as if she were in a candy store. “And the way they reproduce! We’re lucky we have machines to do what their mother grubs do. Of course, our way is more efficient, but the fact that something so complicated exists in nature is astounding.”

Dave was practically choking as he tried not to pass out on the floor at the idea. Troll reproduction was gross and trolls were gross and this entire damn place was gross and he wanted to go home and play video games and forget this happened.

“Listen Lalonde, as much as I’d love to accompany you on your magical journey through the Land of Monster Jizz and Tentadick, I’d also like to keep my breakfast where it belongs. Which is in my stomach, thanks.”

Rose glared at him as if she were thinking _how dare you not appreciate the complexities of troll penis_ but shrugged and quickened her pace, until they came upon a door simply marked ‘office’ and went inside.

A dark-haired man looked up at him from the desk, fixing a stack of paperwork and filing it in the necessary folder, a soft smile on his face. “Good afternoon, My Lady, My Lord.”

Dave’s stomach churned, and not because of the scene from the hallway before.

Mr. Egbert stared at the boy, gleaming with that same innocent sweetness that John always smiled with. Dave almost wanted to punch him, to punch himself, maybe even punch Rose for bringing him here.

He settled for landing a frustrated stomp on a nearby white shoe, the owner of which hissed and backed away.

“That’s right, you little shit,” Dave mumbled under his breath, seething as he watched his troll shift its weight to its uninjured foot, its face scrunched up in pain. Dave still wasn’t over yesterday. He would never be over yesterday.

Rose took no notice of Dave’s current ornery state and instead retrieved some paperwork from within her coat, laying it on the table and pulling out a pen to sign it with. “How’s business?” She inquired.

“Going well as usual,” Mr. Egbert said, straightening his tie. “The fresh batch your older brother brought in is one of the best I’ve seen, so tell your brother ‘thanks’ from me for it!” He chimed.

“I certainly will. Dave?”

“What?” He said, snipping a bit.

“You need to sign this.”

“Oh. Right.” He took the pen and scrawled his name. “Here’s to another year of this dump, yeah?”

“Dave!”

“Thank you very much, My Lord.” Mr. Egbert said, beaming. “I promise not to do you any disservice.”

“Whatever,” Dave mumbled, already halfway out the door. “Come on, Lalonde. Don’t have all day. I have to get back to lying around and whining like a sixteen-year-old girl whose boyfriend just dumped her. That shit is important.”

The door on the other side of the office swung open suddenly, catching all four of the room’s occupants off guard. A sniffling black-haired girl poked her head into the office, her face screwed up in concentration.

“Jade! What’s wrong?” Rose and Mr. Egbert said, almost exactly at the same time. Dave just smiled at her. He figured she’d already heard about the Egbert Birthday Disaster from her brother, so he just did his best not to act stupid.

“D-Dad..” Jade sobbed, before losing all control and racing into the room to grab onto her father, burying her face in his suit. “Dad, John.. John!” She squeaked.

“What? John’s in trouble?” Rose exclaimed, rushing over to Jade to try and calm her in her fit of distress. Dave moved closer, but stayed away. He fucked up once, and he didn’t want to do it again.

Jade shakily pulled a note from her pocket and placed it on the table, before breaking down into sobs again.

Dave gulped, hard.

Oh shit.

 __

 _I don’t want to stay here anymore, I’m sorry._

 _Please don’t worry about me. I’m with someone important to me and he’ll make sure I’m safe._

 _By the time you read this I will already be a long way away from Derse. Don’t look for us._

 _I love him, and we’re safe._

 _Oh and tell Dave thanks for me. His present was great._

 _-John  
_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hoooo boy! Here we go. Sorry this part was kind of boring. I promise there's more yelling and Dave freakouts ahead. Also eventually sloppy makeouts???? But not quite yet!


	3. Rumbling

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gah I apologize ahead of time that this chapter is so short. I promise longer chapters in the future! I'm also sorry it took so long. School is distracting..
> 
> Also, thank you for all your wonderful comments! ;v; I don't deserve such love aaaa

No matter who they asked, the answers were the same. ‘No, I haven’t seen him today.’ ‘He wasn’t at school today.’ ‘I don’t know where he went.’ ‘I should have seen it coming.’

Dave laid in the middle of Rose’s rug, eyes boring holes into the chandelier above him. Jade was curled in one of the many cushioned seats, silently sobbing to herself. Rose sat next to her brother, hands drawn to her mouth and her face drawn into a look of concentration.

“Dave,” she stated. The tone did not indicate that she wanted his attention. It was not summons for him to remove himself from the floor: it just was. His name hung in the air. It had appeared suddenly, matter-of-factly, and it would not go away unless addressed, yet it was formed in such a way that it was difficult to approach it. Dave had never loathed his name so much.

In the silence, a deep bass rumble filled the room. It was hollow, sad, and sickening, and it made Dave’s spine shiver. He didn’t know where it came from, but it unnerved him. He decided to attack the looming subject of his name.

“Hnnh?”

But Rose didn’t respond to his grunt of recognition – instead, she turned to their friend, her face blanketed in tears.

“My dear Jade,” she began, her voice soft yet straight and crisp, the sound that Dave knew accompanied Rose’s most urgent of requests. “I will ask that you let me speak with my brother in private for a moment.”

Jade nodded and excused herself from the room, dabbing at her face with her sleeves, beginning to sob audibly as she left.

The rumble grew deeper.

“The fuck is that noise?” Dave snapped, bringing a hand to his forehead. “It’s making my head hurt.”

Rose gave a small huff of indignation. “Honestly, Dave, if you weren’t my brother I would think you were an imbecile. Your lack of common knowledge is astounding, sometimes.”

Dave crinkled his brows together. “What the hell, Lalonde. All I asked was where that miserable noise is coming from. Is that so goddamn hard?”

“That ‘miserable noise’ is a natural response to extreme stress or fear, which at this point you should be able to recognize.”

“Stress and fear? What the fuck’s-“

Dave turned to face the source of the noise – or rather, turned his head – to see a dark, shivering lump in the corner, bi-color eyes shining from its hiding place, tucked away into a pile of discarded cloth and string.

“Hey, you, shut the fuck up! That’s giving me a headache.”

The sound became less of a rumble and more of a drawn-out whimper.

“Hey asshole, I said shut-“

“Strider.” Rose closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “This is why we need to talk.”

“Lalonde, are you completely deaf to the world’s most annoying sounds, or just this one? Seriously, this shit is freaky.”

“’This shit’” Rose said in a slight mockery of Dave’s voice, “means that you are doing a horrible job of keeping that troll happy.”

Dave scoffed. “Happy? Seriously? That thing doesn’t even have emotions. It has the ‘Hungry’ setting, and the ‘not hungry’ setting. Loud noise means it’s hungry, other noise means it’s being a nuisance.”

“Dave, frankly, I usually don’t care what you do with your things or your life, but I’m going to be outright with you in that I do not believe you are fit to care for any living creature. I would not trust you with Jade’s dog, I would not trust you with my cat, I would not trust you with your own troll, and I’m honestly surprised it’s been alive for as long as it has with you being as irresponsible as you are.” She looked over to her own troll, which was sitting silently, running its fingers along a piece of fabric. “You should count your lucky stars that you will never be ruler of this country, or god so help us all.”

“Fuck you, why’d you have to bring that up?”

“Because, it is the truth.” She said sternly, staring straight down at him, her gaze shattering the barrier that was Dave’s untouchable shades. “Nonetheless, I have already advised you once today to take better care of what belongs to you. That is not, however, what I needed to speak with you about.”

“Fine, what, then?” Dave snarled.

“Last night” Rose whispered, sitting up straight in her chair, continuing to stare down at her brother, “John told me about your argument,” She flipped her hair away from her face, breaking eye contact momentarily, her expressing becoming distant. “and today, he is missing.”

The prince had nothing to say.

“I… I realize that it will be difficult for you to understand,” she continued, “and it’s a bit strange to me as well.”

Dave sat up finally, digging his hand against his forehead, still bothered by the wails from the corner of the room. “What will be difficult for me to understand?” He asked, removing his shades to look her straight in the eye. “Spit it out.”

“If what Jade has told me is true,” she said softly, “ – and what I have seen from John has supported this theory – then I believe…” she swallowed and looked down, pausing as if what she was about to say was groundbreaking and controversial.

“John was… he was in a relationship with his troll.”

Dave was pretty sure it was visible that the gears in his mind had ground to a complete halt.

“What.”

Rose could only shrug at him.

“What.” He repeated. “What.”

“I won’t say I completely understand his feelings,” Rose said, clasping her hands together, “and… I imagine you can’t whatsoever,” she sighed, “but… I believe he took your negativity towards… his… er, partner, quite seriously.”

“I’m going to throw up, holy shit.” Dave said weakly. “What the fuck is this, Lalonde?”

“I don’t-“

“It’s a joke, isn’t it? This is some bullshit you and Jade and John are in on, isn’t it?” he squeaked. “Ha ha, this is hilarious. Let me guess, Jade decided to elope with Bequerel too.” He started laughing, his whole body convulsing with the force of his breath. He felt like his stomach had been filled with tar, with acid, with slime – something sick, something disgusting and poisonous, which he kept trying to heave to remove from his system and yet wouldn’t leave, instead seeping deeper into his body, as if dangerously close to enveloping his heart and killing him.

“Dave, please, this is hard for all of-“

“And you! You’ve probably fucked the cat!” Dave suddenly shouted, flailing his arms about.

He was giddy. Life was giddy. This was a dream, this was a nightmare, it wasn’t real. He would flail around and soon enough it would all go away and he’d wake up to a fresh glass of cold water and neatly ironed t-shirts and John would invite him to his birthday party and they’d laugh and do stupid teenage boy things and have a good time. He’d open his eyes any second and his creepy troll would be off in a corner in a cocoon of sheets and he’d have to smack him with something to wake him up and they’d go to the store and Dave would take a bunch of ironic childrens’ backpacks and then go to the music store and fill each of them up with as many records and CDs he wanted and not pay for any of them because he was the prince and fuck everyone else, he’d tell his troll to fend off the security guards if they tried to do anything. He and John would go hang out with his Bro and they’d put on some fresh beats and dance and not worry about school or any of that shit, and Dave’s troll would just do as it was told and pronounce its own name right and oh god Dave what have you done, this is your fault, what did you do, John’s gone now and he’s run away with a troll of all things and it’ll probably murder him as soon as it’s nighttime and smear his blood all over the city to taunt Dave and John’s blood will be on Dave’s hands forever.

At some point during this long, internal freakout, Dave had started half-crying and half-yelling, and Rose had sat by him and hugged him close. Jade had come back now, too, and she was also crying, and that sorrowful rumbling wail from the corner just got louder and louder until Dave just passed out on the floor in exhaustion.


	4. Strangers to the Light of Day

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ugh I am sorry that this took so long and is so short AGAIN! I promise I'll be faster and write more in the future. Agh.
> 
> Also, thank you guys a thousand times for all your wonderful comments. <333 You cheered me up a lot, I wasn't feeling so great these last few days.
> 
> Anyways! Enjoy the chapter! Warning for blood I guess..?

John had always known that the windows were tinted to allow privacy to those who resided behind them, but he had never realized that, in the night, not a single shred of light escaped. Everything was closed and locked and dark – some people were, indeed, still awake, but no one left at night. No one went out into the darkness, and even for those who lived at the top of the interconnecting skyscraper city and never came down to walk on solid ground, no one left their houses. John had always been told that, when the sun went down, you stayed where you were – you could get home by the enclosed tunnels between the higher parts of the sky-towers, but sometimes that wasn’t enough, and you had to stay put. He had figured that it was to keep children and less coordinated people from stumbling around at night and falling to their death, or some other silly reason like that – but the more he thought about it, he realized that the nighttime reinforcements signified that they were made not to keep people in, but to keep something else out.

He clung to the boy next to him, shivering a bit at the idea that there was something lurking in the shadows. Without even so much as a shred of light to illuminate the dark earth, John could see nothing, and he wondered if his partner could see, too. Sure, the boy in question had significantly better night vision than John, but with the thick smog that filled the space between the skyscrapers, the moon and the stars didn’t stand a chance at touching the ground with their glow.

The sounds, too, were unnerving. Every blade of grass snapped as they stepped along it, every small rock and stick making the most demonic crackles and clicks when disturbed. John was brave, though – he was scared, yes, but he was brave. He reminded himself that he had great reflexes from learning the ways of a pranking master, as foolish as it seemed at the moment, and that his body was in an excellent condition from his preference not to eat things like cake.

The most reassuring thing he had, however, was the troll that walked beside him, whose yellow eyes darted across the landscape at every step, his ears twitching slightly at every sound. John could only imagine that the sounds were no less frightening if they were magnified to the point a troll could hear them, and he squeezed tighter, hoping his embrace would make the fear go away for the both of them.

He was surprised, honestly, that his troll companion was not making more of a ruckus – during the day, as they slipped through the lesser-traveled halls and walkways in the city-towers, he’d had to kindly remind the other to please be quiet or else they’d be found out. And as much as John was afraid of the world beyond the city, a world that he’d known for all but one year of his life - a year he couldn’t even remember – he was much, much more afraid of how his world would change if anyone learned his secret. It had been a difficult decision for the both of them, but in their hearts, they knew it was for the better.

“Karkaaat,” John whispered, yawning a bit as he did, “are we there ye-“

John gasped as a grey hand covered his mouth suddenly, more sharply than any usual contact between the two of them. He stopped dead and listened.

Snap.

John’s heart jumped in his chest. Karkat hadn’t moved. He hadn’t moved.

Someone was out there.

Someone was close.

And then they growled. It was deep and throaty and booming, a feral, hellish sound that shook John to the bone and left him shivering. The growl was repeated, only this time, it was much more like a roar – an evil roar, a horrible roar, a roar that ended in a crude, inhuman laughter, a forced sound that reminded John much more of an angry satanic goat than anything. Karkat hissed beside him, and shouted something in a raspy, garbled language that humans could not understand.

Their stalker laughed again, the sound coming from elsewhere now, and the deep voice clicked and grumbled back to Karkat, whispering first, but growing to a scream, and then back again.

It tackled John, sending the boy sprawling, its large teeth gripping down on John’s shoulder, and he screamed with pain and sheer terror. A clawed hand, a taloned hand, tore across the boy’s chest, leaving five deep red gashes through his flesh. John kicked his feet and closed his eyes in anticipation for the next assault, but the weight on his body and the teeth in his shoulder disappeared as a screaming Karkat knocked the offender off. The troll boy yelled and shrieked and flailed his arms in an attempt to frighten the attacker away, but instead was knocked flat on his back with a swing of an arm.

John struggled to get up, his knees weak, but he dragged himself from the earth as best as he could.

That is, until a large, blunt, and incredibly hard hammer nailed him straight in the back. He sputtered, spitting blood from having bitten his tongue, and fell limp to the ground.

It was close enough for John to see it now, its eyes glowing slightly from within. A troll taller than any John had seen before towered over him, brilliant white teeth glistening with red, two tall, spiraling horns protruding from its forehead, which was plastered with a mass of thick black hair, curling and intertwining into a huge, mane-like mess. Its face had been decorated with some sort of gleaming white warpaint, and its large eyes were sharp and orange and predatory and John was certain he was going to die.

The troll raised its Technicolor hammer again, a wild, demented smirk growing on its face.

Karkat screamed something. He screamed it and screamed it and kept screaming until the huge troll growled back at him with some sort of threat, and began to move towards him.

“No,” John squeaked. “No, no! No! No, come back!” He coughed, spitting the blood of his tongue away to clear his throat. “Please, d-don’t, don’t hurt him!” The yells and screams of the trolls around him sounded like hell itself, and he was afraid. He was afraid because if not for John, Karkat wouldn’t even be here and they wouldn’t have been attacked and everyone would be safe at home, and John for once just wanted to literally lock himself in a closet and never return.

There was a shrill, higher-pitched chuckle from somewhere outside of the fray, and all three of its members turned to blindly face the intruder.

“Hellooo, human!” A female – yet surely not human - voice chirped, followed by a violent sort of laughter that almost scared John more than the troll that had actually attacked him. The girl chattered some sort of command at the tall troll, and to John’s horror, it gripped Karkat by the shirt and lifted him.

“NO!” John screeched. “Put him down, p-please!” He tried to get up, but everything hurt so much he wasn’t even sure he could. “Don’t kill him!” He squeaked.

“Kill me instead.”

The girl laughed. She laughed at him, right in his face, and he felt like crying, like curling up right there and sobbing, but it would not do him any good right now. He was brave. He had to remind himself of that. He was brave.

“I am,” he began, his voice wavering and bubbling from the blood still in his mouth, “J-John Egbert! Heir of Prospit!” He spat again, and raised his voice. “I demand that you, uh, release him immediately! …Please!”

All it earned him was a slap across the face with what had to be a steel rod, and the girl chuckled again.

“I belieeeeve I said HELLOOOOOOOO, human!!” She said to him, her voice screeching across the vowels like she couldn’t quite form them without exaggerating them. “Aren’t you going to say helloooo back???”

“H-hello!” He squeaked. Karkat yelled at them, all of them, in the screechy troll language, and the girl giggled.

“Ohhhh my,” she said, adopting a false accent like someone pretending to be a pretentious mother. “You’re…….. DASTARDLY!” She shoved John back down from his weak arm-supported sitting, clamping him to the earth with a heavy boot. “How dare you corrupt such a poor little boy like this!”

She commanded to the tall one again, and it wandered over in lanky steps that were all too much like the stalking gait of a lion. He reached down and scooped John up, slinging the boy across his shoulder like meat, making John cough at the pain in his chest and back. Everything hurt. He was bleeding everywhere.

He looked over to Karkat, slung across the large troll’s other shoulder awkwardly, like two oversized hares to be dragged back to a campfire and roasted whole.

“I’m sorry, John.” Karkat whispered, and John saw that Karkat was bleeding too, his strange human-colored blood trailing from slices along his face and chest.

“I’m s-sorry too,” John hiccupped, tears welling from pain and fear and sadness. “Karkat, I love you.”

“I love you too.”

John had a feeling deep in his chest that, should he drift into sleep, he would never open his eyes.

It was not, however, the type of sleep that could be fought.

John gave up, and let it capture him, certain that he would not live to see the light of day again.

Worst of all, he felt somewhere, deep in his heart, that he’d deserved it.


	5. Brother

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SO GUESS WHAT GIANT IDIOT FORGOT HER PASSWORD AND COULDN'T FIND IT FOR THREE MONTHS? If you guessed 'reapershadcat' then DING you are a winner!
> 
> That aside I am INCREDIBLY sorry this took so long. :( School also played a factor in that, as it swallowed me whole at the end of August. But still, I am horrible and I do not blame any of you if you hate me forever. I am not worthy of your patience. T_T
> 
> Anyways. I hope you enjoy this chapter, wherein the plot thickens a bit more! ~3u
> 
> [PS I'm too dumb to figure out how to make things pretty colors like some fics do, sorry :( Also I probably forgot the intricacies of Sollux's quirk. I'll fix those later, though.]

“Come on, brother dearest. Your coffee is going to get cold.”

When he woke, Dave was lying on his sister’s couch, head throbbing. He reached around aimlessly for his glasses, which were handed to him by Rose’s troll, along with a cup of coffee. He sat up to survey his surroundings, taking a sip of the now lukewarm beverage in his hands.

Rose was sitting at her table near a still wet-eyed Jade, who had been presented with a plate of bacon and eggs (which Dave was disappointed to see that Rose had not assembled into a smiley face,) across from Rose and Dave’s trolls, who were sitting silently, although Rose’s – Kanaya, yeah – was forking their eggs onto the other’s plate, only for them to be almost literally inhaled. The yellowblood seemed in much better spirits now that it had eaten breakfast, but it still seemed distraught over something, and Kanaya tried desperately to cheer it up by crooning and massaging its back.

Gross. Dave made a note not to ever let Kanaya touch him.

“Did you sleep well, Dave?” Rose said, getting up to deliver a plate of bacon and eggs (which still did not form a smiley face!) to him on the couch. He accepted them, rearranged them into a more appealing shape (which was difficult as there were, in fact, five bacon strips and thus the resulting face appeared to have rather large lips) and then took an experimental bite. It tasted good, albeit a bit greasy. Dave was not accustomed to warm breakfasts. He made a mental note to instruct his troll how to operate a stove and some pork strips in the future.

“Eh.” Truth be told, Dave hadn’t dreamed of anything, so he hadn’t slept too badly.

The phone rang, suddenly, and Kanaya rose to go fetch it. She returned and handed it to Rose, whose face brightened up at the sound of whoever was on the other end of the receiver.

“Oh my god. No, you’re joking! Really?” She squeaked, fanning herself off with her hand. “That’s amazing! We’ll be right there.” She paused. “He’s... doing all right. He didn’t take it well, that’s for sure, but I think seeing you will make him feel a lot better. You’ve been gone for a long time.”

Dave’s head perked up. He stared at Rose and mouthed ‘Who is it?,’ which resulted in a little smile in return. She hung up the phone.

“Your brother is back from his trip! He’d like to see us.”

“What? He’s back? Is he all right!?” Dave nearly fell off of the couch. “I mean.. of course he is, but…”

Rose giggled a little bit. “He’s fine. In fact, he’s better than ever! He found a little something that he thought I’d like to see. I doubt you’ll be interested in it, but he says he’d like to see you, too.”

“What did he find?” Jade mumbled groggily, slowly becoming less teary-eyed at the news.

“He’s not sure,” Rose said, gathering her things and tossing Dave his belongings, “but he thinks it might be an egg.”

“Wowww, like you haven’t seen those before.” Dave snorted, swallowing the rest of his coffee in one gulp that was a little bit too much and made his eyes sting.

“It’s not a troll egg!” Rose exclaimed. “It’s just.. an odd-looking egg from the caverns! That’s all he said.”

Dave collected himself and then handed his cup to his troll, who haphazardly tossed it in the general direction of the sink. Dave glared at it, which received nothing more than a melancholy shrug. The Kanaya troll gave a few encouraging chirps, as if coaxing it to get up and follow Dave. It gave a sharp hissing noise, grumbled, and then slid off the stool to join the others.

“I.. I think I’ll go home,” Jade said as Rose turned to see if she was coming. “I don’t wanna leave Nepeta too long… she’ll destroy the couch. Again.” She sniffled. “She probably already has, w-with Karkat gone… He kept her entertained..”

“All right, dear. If you need anything, Kanaya is here to help you.”

“Wait,” Dave interjected. “She’s not coming with us?”

Rose smiled softly for a moment. “No, if she were to come, she would lock our brother out of his room until it was tidy. Knowing him, we’d be there for ages until she was done.”

“Why do we have to bring the annoying noise machine, then? Can’t he just… stay here?”

“No,” Rose said, beginning for the elevator at the end of the hall. “your brother requested you bring your troll along with you.”

“Fucking figures.”

“Language, Strider.”

\---

Bro’s apartment was, as predicted, a disaster zone. That being said, it wasn’t a disaster zone like Dave’s room was – it was covered instead with frightening weapons, important-looking piles of paper documents, and puppets. Dave was glad he didn’t have to deal with those after he’d moved out, although his bro had made a point to stuff ten whole boxes of Dave’s things with puppets for ‘good measure’ when he left.

There was one thing that was missing from his brother’s room, however.

“Hey, bro.” Dave said, his eyes fixed on an odd wheel nearby.

Bro smirked at the sight of them. “’Sup, little dude, little sis? Did you miss me?”

“Terribly,” Rose replied, smiling and having a seat atop a not-so-structurally-sound-looking stack of paper. “I hear from both you and Mr. Egbert that you come back victorious as usual, though.”

Bro shrugged. “For the most part.” He dug around in a bag nearby and tossed a strange item to Rose, who caught it and cradled it as delicately as she could in doing so.

“Gross,” Dave said, examining it. It was a black ball of… goo, it seemed, with a number of orange hooks and spires protruding from it. The black muck on it seemed to have rubbed off in places, exposing a delicate-looking gold shell underneath.

“Wonderful!” Rose exclaimed. “I’ve never seen something like this. Where did you find it?”

“It was in the breeding caves,” Bro replied, leaning against a wall. “It was inside the corpse of one of those mother grub things. It has to be an egg.”

“Splendid.” She traced one of the horn-like protrusions, her face caught up in the marvel at the new discovery.

“Glad you like it. Say, can you take that to Mr. E? He might know a bit more about it than we do.”

“Certainly,” Rose agreed. “Come on, Dave.”

Bro shifted his weight and looked at his younger brother. “Actually, I thought Dave should stay here. He hates that place, don’t ya, kid?”

Dave nodded. “Shit’s nasty.”

Rose smiled and stood, bowing slightly as she turned for the door. “Very well. I shall leave you two to your own devices, then.” With that, she was gone.

Dave’s eyes returned to the wheel lying on the floor.

“Victory, then, huh?”

It was silent for a moment.

“Yeah. Mostly.”

Mostly? That didn’t sound like something the elder Strider typically said.

“Hey,” Dave asked, looking around. “Where’d Meals on Wheels get to?”

The silence returned.

“Gone,” Bro said matter-of-factly. “Left.”

“It… left? The hell? How did it leave?”

“Just what it sounds like. It was doing fine for a while, but when we got pretty far in the caves, it started acting funny. Cackling to itself and stuff, and then it charged one of the other guys, and… then it left, it just up and wheeled off into the night. I’ve never seen it act like that before. Shit was bananas.”

Bro walked over to where Dave stood and sat down on a nearby chair. “It was weird, too. After it left, a whole bunch of the other trolls went, too. It was like they all went mad and decided to go overboard.”

Dave’s troll made a high-pitched warbling sound and then motioned to be excused for a moment. Dave nodded once in agreement, and it rushed towards the bathrooms faster than Dave had ever seen it run before.

\---

twinArmageddons [TA] began trolling adiosToreador [AT] at 8:32

TA: ii 2wear to god.  
TA: no one ever keep2 me updated on anything. ever. why do ii even bother giving you people my trolltag??  
TA: nevermiind that.  
TA: you.  
TA: you 2liimy ba2tard.  
TA: you realii2e you’re pretty much dead iif they 2o much a2 get a gliimp2e of you, riight??  
TA: ok. yeah. you probably aren’t anywhere near a computer riight now.  
TA: but god dammiit, Niitram.  
TA: two of you lo2er2 have run off thii2 week already. ii only have, liike, three contact2 II can actually talk two iin per2on now.  
TA: you’ve left me wiith 2uch priime optiion2 a2 a wannabe raiinbowdriinker, a giirl who liiterally thiink2 2he’2 a cat, and her creepy-a22 pretentiiou2 moiiraiil. fuckiing thank2, guy2, ii’m glad we’re all iinformed of the2e thiing2 ahead of tiime.

twinArmageddons [TA] ceased trolling adiosToreador [AT]

adiosToreador [AT] began trolling twinArmageddons [TA] at 8:36

AT: ::::)

adiosToreador [AT] ceased trolling twinArmageddons [TA]

twinArmageddons [TA] began trolling adiosToreador [AT] at 8:37

TA: oh fuck. not you.

twinArmageddons [TA] ceased trolling adiosToreador [AT]


	6. The Heir's Reflection

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy turkey day! ..Yesterday. Whatever.
> 
> Anyways, this chapter is mostly world-building and backstory. I hope you like it anyways! We will be back to our regularly scheduled plot in the next chapter.

The Heir did not remember much of his life as a Prospitan. Those days came and went when John was still unable to walk. He was born a prince to the kingdom of Prospit, but the kingdom fell to Derse swiftly and, though his father would not like to admit it, without much resistance. A truce was made to keep the new Dersians happy – a truce that promised that nobility could remain nobility, and so the little Prince became Heir instead. All that was asked of the Prospitans was that they follow Dersian law and social structure.

His father was given a position of power among the government, as Derse’s queen thought well of him. He became head of a department that John did not know much about and never really cared to. He was a prince, after all – a prince of a country that no longer technically existed, but he had the same basic upbringing, accompanied with all the perks of being royal.

One of these perks was the first pick of young trolls. Most children were haphazardly assigned one, but John, on his fifth birthday, was allowed to choose. Like a slave auction, all the freshly-pupated trolls were gathered into a small viewing room and described to their potential masters in as much detail as available which, usually, wasn’t much.

The trolls were all pretty scary, John thought. They were all points and jagged edges and sharp teeth, and John hadn’t wanted anything to do with them. He’d protested and complained, but eventually, inevitably, he had to choose.

So he chose one. He chose the one with the roundest teeth, with the nubbiest horns, with the fluffiest hair. Inadvertently, he also chose the one with the foulest temper.

It took a long time for John to get used to the creature. When he built a tower of blocks, the troll would yell and smash them. When he tried to sleep, it would be awake, growling to itself, stealing all of John’s blankets and taking them elsewhere in the apartment to form a cocoon. When he tried to listen to music, the troll would shriek until it was turned off. The troll was obviously not a fan of being held captive by humans, and John was not a fan of being its captor.

And so the boy retaliated. For every macaroni craft that the troll had eaten, for every toy car that had been chewed to shreds, and for every pillow that had been mauled, John had something up his sleeves. He tricked it. He messed with it until it was red in the face with frustration, laid traps for it to stumble into and therefore fall victim to whatever odd prank John was trying to pull. Buckets of water fell from doors, food items were launched into faces, and young trolls were trapped and hoisted up by their ankles.

Sometimes, though, the troll would get hurt, and John would feel a thousand times more devastated than he had from a broken toy. Sometimes, the troll would even bleed, and it would sit miserably and cry at its own bright red blood for reasons neither it nor anyone else understood.

John began to see it as less and less of a nuisance. He could see that sometimes it felt sad, sometimes (a lot of the time) it felt angry, and on rare occasions, it would even feel happy. John began to marvel at how it could curl tightly into a ball on the couch, how it could so carefully craft a cocoon for itself, and, most intriguingly, how it would study things.

One day, it found an old muffler outside – one that had likely fallen off of a scooter, being so small. It sat on the couch and stared at it for a good three hours. Its eyes darted over the little holes and soft curves, the precise shape of the metal. The way it examined the muffler made John wonder just what was happening in the troll’s head, and for the first time, he thought that maybe it wasn’t much different than the things that happened in his own.

The year passed, and the troll began to learn the Dersian language. It was crude and its words were garbled and gravelly, but every time it spoke, its words held emotion. It was not afraid to point out when John was wrong or when he did something that the troll didn’t like. It liked words, too, and picked the language up quickly, soon forming colorful sentences that didn’t make much sense to anyone else but got the point across in vivid detail. Soon it and John were arguing almost constantly, much to the displeasure of the other members of the house.

John learned that its name was Karkat.

Karkat loved to examine things. He would watch movies over and over and pick out any inconsistencies or unnecessary contrivances, as well as argue his point in that romantic comedies were THE BEST with no excuses, citing multiple scenes from them to prove his case. He abhorred many of the movies John liked, but watched them anyways, and it seemed that every day the two boys spent at least two hours sitting and discussing films.

Somewhere along the way, John forgot that Karkat was a troll. Somewhere along the way, John began to admire how creative his friend was, began to care what he thought about things.

Somewhere along the way, the two of them became inseparable. The two of them laughed and cried and made things together, and as they grew older, the two of them learned that they wanted nothing more than to be near each other forever.

Unfortunately, they learned that Derse wasn’t ready for them to be together. John learned that his friends all saw their trolls as servants, as tools, as toys – and so did the rest of the world.

And so they stayed quiet.

Until, one day, they ran away.


	7. The Spinning of the Spider's Web

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hate Word with a burning passion. Pa22iion, even. If there's a lack of double 'ii' in any words used by Sollux in this chapter, I do hope you'll excuse me, because I had to go back multiple times to try and redouble the iis because of STUPID MICROSOFT WORD GEEZ NO ONE LIKES YOU
> 
> Also funfact, lots of POV switching happens in this fic, sorry. Also there are more characters than I tagged. And there's an event that I probably should tag but won't because I don't want to spoil it, even though I have (very subtly) hinted at it already.
> 
> I'm trying really hard not to make Vriska unbearably snotty, so I'm sorry if she's not snotty enough. I just... I struggle, because I'm not much of a Vriska fan and so when it comes to writing her I'm like uHH, i DON'T, hAVE ANY IDEA WHAT THE FUCK I AM DOING, sORRY, iF THAT'S DISAPPOINTING FOR YOU, bUT YOU'LL JUST, hAVE TO DEAL, fOR NOW, uNTIL I GET BETTER,,,
> 
> Vriska problems nonwithstanding, enjoy!! ~3u

Here, at the top of the city, the stars were visible in the sky. The smog of civilization was too thick to reach this high, and so the topmost apartments of the massive skytowers (which were pretty much cities within themselves, with little areas to go outside as well, multiple bridges connecting all of the towers) was reserved for the rich and the royal. The rich and the royal humans, that is.

When you're a troll, nothing feels royal.

Unable to sleep both due to a different sleeping pattern than his human master and due to the horrible nightmares that plagued trollkind, Sollux decided to sit in front of the big window in the main room of Dave's apartment. The stars twinkled and shimmered back at him, the moon bright and huge in the sky. The windows were tinted so the outside could not see in, but the inside could see out, and Sollux's eyes, odd as they were, could make out the little details of the towering city around him in the dark.

The buildings were huge, silver, modern towers that reached to seemingly impossible heights. From them sprawled walkways and hanging gardens, and from each floor of the buildings flew vibrant purple flags with the emblem of Derse on them, a lavender crescent moon. One thing Sollux noticed missing from outside, however, were humans, which to him seemed to contradict the title of "The Dark Kingdom" that Derse had gained in the years of antiquity for its people supposedly staying up all night. Maybe only the people of the capital stayed inside all night? Sollux had never been outside of it, save for the few, fleeting moments in his memory when he was somewhere dark and cold and damp, but he barely remembered that. He wasn't even sure if it was real.

He wasn't sure very many things were real. He denied, sometimes, that anything was - there was no way that he was a slave, no way that he was a troll. There was no way that, at this very moment, he was alive. It was too surreal, too frightening, and too uncomfortable.

He pulled out his modified communication device and flipped on the chat program to see if anyone he knew was online, in an attempt to steer his mind away from such depressing ideas.

There were two - one he knew to be Nepeta, who was seemingly always online no matter if she was available or not, and the other... was that weird girl that was "BAD NEWS, SHE'S LIKE A FUCKING LAVA-TORNADO HELLFIRE ARMAGEDDON OF SHITTY NEWS, IF SHE EVER TEXTS YOU JUST LOG OUT IMMEDIATELY, I PROMISE YOU WILL BE A THOUSAND TIMES HAPPIER" in the words of one Karkat Vantas. He didn't know her name, but she was one of the minute handful of trolls that had managed to find and download his modified pestering program - which he'd specifically placed in the most difficult place to access on the internet that he could think of, so it was his fault, he supposed - and actually used it.

He was going to turn his commdevice off, when said Bad News Girl messaged him.

AG: Oh good, you again!  
AG: You're the nerd that tried to text dear, sweet pupa, aren't you?  
AG: Well, hey, nerd! You're a troll, right? 8ecause if you aren't, I'll have to kill you, hahahaha!!!!!!!!  
AG: 8ut I dou8t not, 8ecause 8oth Tavvy and Karkles here seem to know you.

TA: KK and TR are wiith you?

AG: Why, yes!!!!!!!!  
AG: Don't you know? I saved them ::::)

TA: you 2aved them?  
TA: ii thought TR ran away.

AG: Oh, he did! I just... gave him a liiiiiiiittle push in the right direction. ;:::)  
AG: His little mind is so weak and impressiona8le, and he can't even use his legs. I was just 8eing a good Samaritan and helping to free a poor crippled whimp get away from his 8astard human scumlord prince!

TA: ….ehh, anyway2, diid you contact me to gloat about kiidnappiing my friend2, or two actually iinform me of 2omethiing iimportant?  
TA: becau2e iit’2 kiind of three iin the morniing, and ii really don’t have tiime two 2leep duriing the day.

AG: Ohh, well, I was just letting you know that I’m defin8ly gonna save you, too!  
AG: I’m gonna save EVERY8ODY. All of the trolls. All of them.  
AG: Karkles already told me that you’re stuck with some complete looooooooser asshole prince, 8ut then he went and told me not to do anything a8out it. Rude! O8VIOUSLY, you are a depr8ved creature who needs to 8e rescued from the clutches of the evil human monarchy!  
AG: Or should I say… MOM-narchy? Since they all call her that, you know. It’s creepy.  
AG: …whatever, the point is, I have a 8ig plan and I think it’s going to 8e gr8!!!!!!!!  
AG: Just you see. We’re gonna do some 8iiiiig damage to the system. ;:::) 8ig damage. We’ll cripple them so hard that pupa here will 8e a8le to walk again from how much damage is done.

TA: thank2 for the rea22urance, no one ha2 ever led a revolutiion agaiin2t the human2 before, nope.  
TA: they certaiinly 2ucceeded every tiime they triied.  
TA: call me a pe22iimii2t, but ii’ve long giiven up tryiing two bu2t thii2 joiint. iit’2 poiintle22 and wiill never happen. ii am goiing two diie here in thii2 apartment buiildiing wiith the 2tupiid priince.  
TA: even iif you diid launch 2ome 2ort of large2cale attack on the capiital, there’2 liiterally no way you’d reach me. ii’d be dragged along wiith the royal famiily, two wherever they’d be hiidiing, probably que2tiioned, and then euthaniized on the 2pot out of fear for trollkiind.  
TA: 2o iif you want two 2tart 2ome biig rebelliion, be my gue2t. ju2t don’t endanger whatever diigniity my friiend2 2tiil have after you kiidnapped them.

AG: Hahaha! If you mean Pupa and Karkles, they’re my friends too, and Pupa already agreed to help me. He doesn’t really have much of a dignity left, that poor, hideous fellow, so don’t even worry a8out it.  
AG: You don’t have to get your panties in a twist over Karkles quite yet, though. He’s 8eing stu88orn. Stupid humans must have done something seriously twisted for him to 8e like this. ::::/ He won’t even let us torture the human he came with for inform8tion!

TA: he wa2 wiith a human?

AG: Uh, yeah he was, he wouldn’t even let us near the thing until I made him move away from it. Eugh, it’s so gross and pink and it doesn’t even eat anything that makes sense! It can’t eat gru8loaf. Gru8loaf!!!!!!!! He’s so rude!!!!!!!!

TA: grubloaf?

AG: You know, gru8loaf!

TA: not riingiing any bell2, 2orry.

AG: WH8T?  
AG: YOU’VE NEVER HAD GRU8LOAF?  
AG: That’s it, consider yourself a top priority rescue when we get up there. No 8utts.

TA: hey, iif ii may a2k.  
TA: what are you goiing two do to ‘2hake the 2y2tem’?

AG: ;;;;) It’s a 8ig huge secret, so I’m afraid I can’t afford to share.  
AG: You’ll know when it happens, though.

TA: ii2 iit a bomb? an explo2iion of 2ome 2ort? hackiing iintwo theiir 2y2tem and liiterally breaking iit?

AG: Shhhhhhhuuuuuuuush, Mr…

TA: 2ollux.

AG: Mr. ‘2ollux’.  
AG: Just sit 8ack and enjoy the show. ;:::)


End file.
